Splatoon Manga: NightRoad

Chapter 12: Help

⭐️Chapter 12: Help

When the squidbeak had woken up the next morning, they decided to have a look around.

Other than a med wing and a place to sleep, there was a small area for food, a lounge...yeah not much. But hey, at least people were doing their best to make a living here.

The squidbeak had situated themselves near the entrance area of octo canyon, just in case the shadowlings DID find them. They could hold them off long enough so that the people of inkopolis still here could move to a different location.

"Hey, does anyone wanna risk checking inkopolis to see if it's okay?" Gloves asked.

Everyone was still concerned about their home, but nobody dared to ask about it until now.

"I'll do it." Prince said.

Emperor sat up from the chair he was on.

"Brother, please don-"

"I'll be fine. It's the least I can do to make up for what happened." 

Prince got out of the chair he was sitting on and made his way over.

"What do you mean make up? It was literally everyone else's fault BUT yours. And Rider's." Flip said.

Indeed, she had blamed herself for such a stupid plan, but yeah. Nobody listened to Rider, and they just went with the flow. I mean, I guess you could narrow it down to just Gloves, Nana, and Flip's fault since the rest of them only listened to what they said, but nobody wanted to get involved in that at the moment. The last thing they needed was a fight to separate all of them.

"Well...I just felt bad for being the last one capable of fighting, yet not fighting..." Prince said, remembering last night. 

He DID still feel terrible.

"It's okay, you didn't have a choice. We didn't know they were immune to ink either." Nana reassured him.

"Still..." Prince sighed.

"Well. If it'll make you feel better, then I won't stop you." Hachi said.

The others nodded, except Emperor, who just looked away.

"Alright everyone, don't worry. I'll be quick." Prince said quietly, giving a little smile and a small salute. Everyone else nodded or saluted back.

And with that, Prince dove down the grates.

It was a while before he reached inkopolis, as he couldn't tell since it was dark and the lid was covering the entrance to inkopolis. He swan in silence for a while. The calmness was nice, despite the rather...desperate situation. He eventually got to the grate in Inkopolis. Prince took a few deep breaths.

Slowly he lifted up the lid, but only barely. It was daytime in inkopolis, and nothing had been destroyed, even the stage was gone. There were some party things still strewn about, but other than that, it seemed pretty clean and neat.

'At least they've left it intact instead of destroying it...' Prince thought.

Suddenly, he saw a figure wearing boots. They were standing by Off the Hook's meeting room, but weren't moving. Prince held his breath and slowly closed the lid in case he was spotted. He began his way back to octo canyon.

That was odd. If there was anyone left, it would only be the people who didn't go to the party or the other people who were defeated by the shadowlings. Even so, they might've been captured and taken hostage. I guess shadowlings could survive light? To be honest, the shadowling he met would probably approve of the squidbeak defeating the others so he could rule properly. That one shadowling could probably give them so much information...but the other shadowlings probably knew this too.

Prince got to octo canyon with the squidbeak still by the spawn point.

"It's daytime there, and the entire place is barren-except for that one person I saw, and intact."

"Finally, a villain who isn't destructive." Rider sighed. 

The Skylings were chaos and he wasn't about to have to put up with that again. Let's be real here though, none of them were.

Emperor looked at him at the mentioning of the "one person". The look literally said "Explain".

"I didn't know who the person was, but I don't think they spotted me" Prince added, to reassure everyone.

"Well...that's a...sort of. Plus. I guess." Goggles tried to cheer everyone up.

"But come on guys! Inkopolis is still intact! It'll be fine!" Flip said.

Like Rider, she liked the fact that this wasn't Skylings all over again.

"Yeah but we still need to make a plan soon." Hachi said. He wasn't going to let the team forget about this.

"Okay but what do we do about their ink immunity?" Gloves said, sitting up.

His chest still hurt and the eye hadn't healed, but it was better than last time. He wanted a plan, but this was their main obstacle.

"You're gonna need better weapons!" A bright but familiar voice said.

Everyone turned to see Callie and Marie walking towards them.

"Well yeah, but what do you mean? Is it like...special ink?" Flip asked.

"Yup. Shadow ink, the kind they use." Marie replied.

"YES!" Most of them said at the same time.

Finally, they could hit a target that couldn't be hit.

"We're getting a special inkling spy to bring us back weapons of their brand." Marie said, looking at Callie.

"Finally, REVENGE!" Rider yelled.

"Keep in mind we haven't actually made a plan yet-" Hachi reminded them, only to be interrupted by Callie.

"They'll be in by tomorrow. Man that did a number to our cash though..."

"Relax Callie, it wasn't that much."

The two started to walk away.

"Wait!" Prince cried, "Where are Off the Hook?!"

They turned around.

"Haven't seen 'em all day. I called them, but they didn't answer." Marie said.

Callie nodded.

"Maybe the shadowlings got them..." Nana suggested.

"Probably." Emperor agreed.

Then the squid sisters left. Hachi sighed. Maybe he should lay off planmaking.

"In the meantime, what should we do?" Rider asked

"Play a game?" Goggles suggested.

"Oh boy, like what?" Gloves perked up, ready for something, ANYTHING, fun.

"Tic-tac-toe? I spy? Hide and seek?" Goggles listed off many possible games they could play here.

"I spy might allow us to find something, so let's do that!" Flip said.

Rider groaned. They did this on their sky adventures, and it got boring quickly. Especially once he got involved as one of the "I spy" objects.

"Well if you're going to do it, don't use me as one of the guessing things." he grumbled.

"Gotcha!"

The rest of the day was spent playing the game, despite the fact none of them found anything.